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a zine by Shapeless PressGUTSvol i

GUTS, vol. iTable of Contents Preface by Glen K. Rodman"memory garden" by ameera salman"We Are Trash," by Shannon West"A Dirtfag Manifesto," by Calum Robertson"T-Hole," by Lucas J. RougeauxThree poems by Lee Le BretonExcerpts from "58 loving and bodilyinsights," by Andre López Ayquipa"Weight of Transformation," by Alexander "Nefekalum" Hyatt"satsuma peel" by Nathan Rivera Mindt"Queer Utopia Lies in Recognition," by Andy Rubio "No-Body""Golden Men," by Orfeu Angheluta "Take Me, Impose Upon Me, YourWants," by Lucien V. Sebastian"how do we decolonize bodies? /(trans)cendental beings undercisheteropatriarchy," by moon đặng.................................................page 1.................................................page 3.................................................page 4.................................................page 5.................................................page 9.................................................page 10.................................................page 11.................................................page 13.................................................page 14.................................................page 15.................................................page 16.................................................page 17.................................................page 18

You probably wake up in the morning with it twistingyour guts like a clenched fist. Maybe some days, the goodones, you read a great book or meet up with friends andyou get to forget a little bit and live your life. But most days,there’s a new headline. Some jackass at the New YorkTimes or the Guardian hits post on their insipid thinkpiece,and picks away the scab that they just won’t let heal. “Toopolitical,” says the rejection email in your inbox, “toocontroversial, too niche. We just don’t think this pitch hasa broad appeal. It won’t resonate with our targetaudience.” Meanwhile, our people are dying. Whether by suddenviolence or the methodical criminalization of transness andinaccessibility of medical and legal transition, we are beingmurdered by our neighbors and our governments. Andevery single day, we must survive not only this violence,but the grief it leaves us with. The loss of friends who stillhad so much left to do, so much more to be. My friendCora should still be here. If she were, I’d be in her DMspestering her to write something for this zine. I’m so angrythat I will never get to read what she would have written.Preface / Glen K. Rodman, EditorLook, I don’t have to explain the urgency of Trans art. Ifyou’re reading this, you already feel it. 1

Preface (cont'd) / Glen K. Rodman, EditorWe all feel the urgency. Some days it hurts toomuch to do anything at all. Some days it gets usout of bed and into the streets to protest andorganize. Some days it explodes out of us inwords, pictures and song. When we take thaturgency and make something with it, we’redoing something more than surviving. We’recreating a dialogue apart from the sanctifiedmonolith of derision and complacence that mostinsist to be consensus reality. A dialogue inwhich our rage is understood, our pain is notdismissed, our grief is shared, our joy affirmsand our self-expression inspires. When we make something for and share itwith our Trans community, we have theopportunity to learn more about ourselves, tobuild relationships of care, and to help othersget free. In GUTS, you’ll meet Trans andNonbinary folks from all over the US, the UKand Canada, creating urgent art in everyprintable medium. My commitment to publishing and distributingthis work keeps me getting up out of bed everyday, because I know that we need it. That’s mypromise to you: keep writing, keep drawing,keep sending it to me, and I’ll keep printing it.Let’s make something together.Love & Solidarity,Glen K. Rodman2

it would be a tragedy to remember the feelingof your lipstoo painful to unravel how it felt sinkingin your hipsbecause even now in this gardenof ghosts you appearto me like an era i cannot outlivei’ll tell just as soonas i do butevery night before i dreami ask you not to returnand i mightbe losing track of timebut even if takes forever andone dayi will know the peace of forgettingyour face"memory garden" / ameera salman3

"We are Trash" / Shannon West4

All sound is queer because the world itself is queer.Drew Daniel, 2011I am Dirtfag. I am Dirtfag, so hear me more. I am Dirtfag, I am the lighter-flick roar. I am Dirtfag, I am thecigarette's first groan of smoke. I am the soft issuing soothing lullaby,tobacco-burnt and dusty. I am Dirtfag, and I am speaking to you.I am Dirtfag. I flit and flirt between a dozen or so different categories ofqueer music-makers. Metal-bears. Dirtfags. Jazz Twinks. Otter Folkies. Speedmetal Queers.RaveQueens. Lo-fi Faggots. Dyke Cowboys. Pop Punk Trannies. Goth Gays.Bass Bottoms. Hyperpop Prissies. Sad Bi Girl Indie Rockers. LavenderDesperadoes. Blackgaze Fae. But say any of these to a queer deep in a music scene, and they’llimmediately know not only what each term means, but they’ll also think of afew examples (both friends and bands) and reward your witticism with achuckle or two. They may even identify by one of these terms lateron.Maybe you’ll hear a term you coined sprinkled into a conversation with acutie in a city you’re just passing through."A Dirtfag Manifesto" / Calum Robertson These terms won’t be found in any dictionary, not even the online onesoriented towards BB gays trying to find their way through a vast sea ofniche terminology.5

Maybe a Pop Punk Tranny will need an Otter Folkie to keep them warmfor a night or two.Maybe Dirtfag won’t drink alone tonight. Or sip coffee in an empty dinerwhere the only company is a jukebox playing Laura Jane Grace and TimCurry, the waitress as sweet a transvestite as me, as Dirtfag with blackcoffee and toast crusts forming a crucifix on the plate under my scabbyelbows, gown sleeves trailing in egg yokes and ketchup drifters. The cook sparks a stove who looks a little bit like me, sniffs my last night late night boozin’ cruisin’ scent nicer than that reek of Days n’ Dazed, y’know, I bet my grandpasmelt of musk and must and muskrat when he checked thetraplines with Jack Daniel and Jim Morris, lighting up tobacco andsinew-burn in equal measure, see how he checks see how hetalks see how he sees the forest move but this ain’t Sioux Lookout,this is Mel’s in Waterloo and I’m sipping black coffee withpeeling pictures of Elvis, oh I just love how a man in leather fallsapart!).(cheaper than Dior, We have self-labeled for the evening. We have made language as fluid asour genders as water as the water of sound. We wear identities asaesthetic, we change as often as we’d like. We are fluid, riding waves ofsound and constructing little outfits to dance and swim around in, usingsound to build and to carry away, out on the current, genderless andgenderful.6

Lavender DesperadoesDyke CowboysDirtfag,Tonight, I will wear my Goth Gay face for the Cure night atBroken City.Tomorrow, down at the Whiskey Rose it’s and galore.Last week, a collided into me, a in the pitof the Palomino’s basement at the Bootlicker show.At midnight, I crossed the street, clambered down a steep and stickystairwell, emerging into Vern’s as , ready for the punk rockshow, for SNFU or Harsh or AJJ; Dirtfag’s craving whoever stepsup to the mic and claims the stage as theirs.There’s a change in attitude, not in clothing; aesthetics are morethan material.There is no change. Dirtfag draws on the same queer energy everysound does, the same wild sound-flow every queer hears. Every queer screams along, in their own way. screams to a half-time beat, bouncing off other punks,colliding with the bassist’s warbles, low frequency waves crashing. Driftwood in the venue, watch me swim through the pit.DirtfagToday, alone in my room with a bent needle dipping for swooning,dueling saxophones, I become , performing for nobody butme. It is genuine and it is beautiful.It is made up, playing pretend, yet it is as real as anything ever is.Aesthetics are surface level in my queer circles. Aesthetics, genres andstyles express the deeper-felt queerness, the truth of our voices howeverDirtfags sound. They free our screaming. They clamour for rejoicing.Metal-bearBlackgaze FaeJazz Twink7

Dirtfags build a body, bass a spine for Dirtfag shufflers. Dirtfag-bass-beat ripplesthrough a crowd.Dirtfags dance, mosh, skank, swim through the sounds.Think of and grinding to that desire throb.Dirtfags know how to handle what shimmering wavelengths they ride.Dirtfag is the universe.At a basement punk show in Kitchener amongst queers I didn’t know, I said Iwas Dirtfag and they immediately knew what I meant, launching into aconversation on our favourite folk punk bands. Walking into that punk housebasement, coated in that feedback whine of guitars ready to begin theironslaught, chunky drums trembling in the briefest moment of expectation beforethe sticks land, hearing Doc Martens and Converse sneakers shuffle onconcrete, clink of pins against chains, rustle of denim and corduroy, I knewimmediately Leather DaddiesSlinky Gym Broswe're all Dirtfag here.I am Dirtfag.You are Dirtfag.We are Dirtfag.So c'mon, rock a lil with me.Do that Dirtfag Dance.Get dirty. Get faggy.Get it, Dirtfag.8

"T-Hole" / Lucas J. Rougeux9

A god says "lay downon this garden ground, I'm gonnamake a woman out of you." Youblack out. You come to, you'remarried & your rib is gone.Get outta that garden, baby. Youalready know the names of everythingexcept evil. When the cool dark creepsin and you hear that god come walking,hide. Quick, while there are no angelsat the gate. Quick, before god knowsyou know you're naked./ Lee Le BretonBefore plumage is skin: rice paperbodies hatched from jellybean eggs,lichen-crusted spit nests, all mouthgullet and bulbous eye;twice as large the day after birthand twice as large the next dayand twice as large the next day. Voracious!Transforming is hungry business, I know.the trauma of two thousand commutes certainly;a concave adolescence; that driver’s ed lessonwhere nothing happened but my already worldlylizard brain ran the physics on a tuck-and-roll;that tightening, step one of a fetal curl;now petrified of release, of a yoga mat sob.Is some forgotten horror camped there?Or is it stupider? Is it just thatto be human is to squeeze?"Eden""About newborn hummingbirds""What lives in the hip flexor?"10

excerpts from "58 loving and bodily insights" / Andre López Ayquipa11

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"Weight of Transformation" / Alexander "Nefekalum" Hyatt13

my love i have a confession -- just betweenus and the car roof -- us and each morning,the needle doesn't hurt so bad --see new changes, softness, the face shifting under skin, one of these days she'll return to herself: sluggish fearcrushed under so many pillars of salt, asphalt-kissedand cherry,there's this pink haze settling above the trees,just above them, in their woodchipped tree pits --in the clouds sitting like lumpy blankets -- on the projector; we take off our masks and kiss for a second,your appetite might change -- mine did,though i've always loved a good bite of dark chocolate.pardon the romance: there is a spot on my neckwe have discovered, that she touched for a second and made real.we split an orange after: it tasted big, sour, unveined --"satsuma peel" / Nathan Rivera Mindt14

"Queer Utopia Lies in Recognition" / Andy Rubio "No-Body"15

Cold rooms swallow the heat, Forever hungry, hungry, hungry,And all the heat gathers at the top in a neat trick,And from the magician's hat they pull me, Me, glinting, me, burningGolden Body, Oh, shifting body, I never wrote you a love poem. I never wrote you sonnets. You, glorious, you, Crown jewel of thrift shop dignity, You, smooth-mouth and perfect-word, You, ink-veiled and hematite-toothed, Here is your sonnet, lover.Golden pollen freesia, Hooded eyes of stone, shelter to love, Holy body, holy body, I'll eat you whole, holy body -- Consumption is my personal worship. The red carpet was made for melting Golden men into the stitches, And I was made from the golden stitches left. Here is your sonnet, lover. I will eat your heart out."Golden Men" / Orfeu Angheluta 16

"Take Me, Impose Upon Me, Your Wants"/ Lucien V. Sebastian17

my body is a continuation of the history that has brought it here and it is herebefore i am aware of the political weight of its existence no wonder,it is easier to invite the thought of death inmy body has died multiple times. my body has traversed a thousanddeaths.when one looks at it and imposes an assumed positionalitypurely for the way it looks, but not the way it carries an energetic life force not the way it carries a collection of memories, emotions, stories, people not the way it carries a depth that is more than a body.the presence of the writer is trapped in the presence of the bodyand the body is trapped in the structures of the binary system, and so the writer is trapped in the prejudiced projections of its own readersmindthe writer is free to dream but only ifthe dream is governed within an institution that enforces freedom only for a select fewan institution that will ensure the protection of its powerful bourgeois class through policing, caging, and disposing bodies through subjugation of a permanent international underclass through exploitation on bodies for the expansion of capital"how do we decolonize bodies? / (trans)cendentalbeings under cisheteropatriarchy" / moon đặng18

how can we be free when our body is trapped in the workings of thesystem’s mind? no, it is impossibleto expect one to be free through trapping oneself further away byignoring the workings of the puppeteer on the puppet, on the body ofour collective.my body has died countless times throughout human history under thehands of imperialist expansions on the body / the land, what is freedom without the ability to be in a body without feelingtrapped? without feeling the need to dissociate as a protective mechanism?i have walked through various physical formswhen i leave this body, i will be one again with the land and i will stillbe here in a non-human body. but until then and until i am stilldictated by a human body under a system that imprisons humanitywithin it. no i cannot be free.no! i will not be viewed superficially as a creation with breasts, avagina, oh so you are just a woman. no! i am a vessel in which death has been inscribed in the makings of itsregeneration.it is easy to welcome death as death lingers on the veil of my flesh.but in the face of death, our body shall live.19

GUTS, issue iwas a zine byEditor....................Glen K. RodmanDesigner...............Amalia VavalaIn conjunction with..........PRPL PPLCopyright...........Shapeless Press, 2023Shapeless Press can be found online atshapelesspress.com and on Instagram at @shapeless.press

a zine by Shapeless Press